Purrls

Friday, June 08, 2007

Finished Objects!

It has taken me far too long to get the picture of the green capelet up on here :-) The pattern is Wandering Aran Vines by Norah Gaughan and the yarn is Cascade 220 sent to me by the lovely Miss 13. The yarn was originally destined for a felted handbag, then later reworked into an ill-fated cardigan sweater, and finally ended up in this lovely cabled creation. The cables were a lot of fun to work and made the project go very quickly. The buttons are colored wood slices that my mom bought for me. I wore it for a wedding on St. Patrick's Day!

And then my latest masterpiece; probably the most challenging thing I have ever knit. The pattern is the Spring Garden Shawl designed by Karen of the Knitche (my LYS!). I think knowing that I could always go see Karen and go "help!" gave me the confidence to try this pattern. As it turned out, I didn't need any help; the pattern was really well written and I found myself cruising along because it was so enjoyable to knit. I treated myself to fancy beads from Bead Heaven and they are just the perfect color. The yarn is Misti Alpaca. I am *so* proud :-)

The only minorly bad news in my knitting world is further drama with the cursed Lacey Lamb. This yarn is supposed to be so wonderful but it has been a nightmare. The first two patterns I tried with it did not work out, which is admittedly not the fault of the yarn. The third pattern was the Jenny Shawl by Lucia. The pattern is certainly easy enough, but the yarn started to misbehave; ejecting huge wads of tangled yarn with nearly every pull. I finally reballed it on my ballwinder, which only made things worse. I ended up with an inside-out rat's nest which was when I decided maybe I should just cut my losses and bind off the shawl even though the pretty lace edging was only partially done.

Alas, the shawl was too small. Way too small. And so I tried to pick out the edging and dropped a few stitches and the whole thing just fell apart on me. I ripped out the whole thing. I would try the pattern again with a heavier yarn; all that garter stitch is definitely mellow but got a little boring for me because I needed to do SO many rows of it with such fine yarn. As for the yarn, that's it. Three failed patterns and several hours of knotted mess are enough for me. I regret purchasing it and I am considering emailing the company to tell them how disappointed I am.

However, I feel much better now that my "plate" is cleared. I can start any project I wish now; as both of my shawls are done. I have to confess that there were a few errors in the green Jenny Shawl that I tried to repair and they didn't "fix" very well. I had been telling myself they would block out but there was this doubt at the back of my mind, and I feel better now that I've ripped the whole thing out.